The One Essential Strategy to Conquer Burnout
The first and most basic thing you can do to master burnout
The most simple and basic thing you can do to master burnout - either prevent burnout from occurring or recover from it - is to simply do more of what fill you up and less of what drains you.
In this newsletter, I’ll explore the latter half of the formula: “Do more of less of drains you” and leave the first half for next week.
So one of the simplest definitions of burnout is that
“Burnout happens because your output is greater than your input.”
When you put out more than you put in, when your output of energy and resources is greater than your input, you slowly drain your energy stores and battery life and over time end up empty - burnt out.
We all have an amount of energy at our disposal for our everyday life — I call it “The Energy Budget”. You can think of it as your bank account or as a budget with a certain amount of money that can be spent for your everyday activities — except that instead of money, you’re using units of energy.
Going throughout our day-to-day life, every activity and thing that we do requires some energy from us. But it doesn’t go just one way. As with money and bank account, so with the Energy Budget, there are things that require money and energy from us and there are also things and activities that bring us money and energy.
In order words, there are things that fill us and our Energy Budget up and things that drain us.
Now, going back to the statement above:
“To master burnout, do more of what fills you up and less of what drains you.”
Although the definition is simple - you might think to yourself “So, I just need to do more of what I enjoy and love and less of what I don’t like and hate” or “I just have to work less and rest more” - it’s not that easy.
Energy output is tricky because not all of the outputs are conscious - meaning we might not be aware of what drains us - and not all of the outputs consume energy at the same rate - some consume more energy than others and some even speed up energy consumption.
Let’s explore some of the things that might drain your energy that you’re not aware of.
Things that Require and Consume Energy
1. All kinds of Stress
When we experience stress, our body goes into Fight or Flight Mode, which is an evolutionary survival mechanism that enables us to survive in dangerous situations.
Fight or flight mode triggers the body and adrenal glands to produce a cascade of stress hormones which drain our energy stores very rapidly to ensure the body has enough energy to “survive”.
So if you’re under a lot of stress, you will drain your energy budget more quickly are you’re more in danger of burnout.
It’s worth mentioning that not all stress is bad: good stress - hormetic stress or eustress, stress that is more intense but short-acting - also drains our energy but at the same time makes our body stronger over time. So it’s recommended to lower or eliminate bad stress - stress that is chronically elevated for extended periods of time - and include some good stress to grow stronger.
2. Activities that we don’t enjoy doing
This one is kind of obvious: the things that consume the most energy from us and drain us the most are things and activities that we don’t enjoy doing.
Going through our day, almost any activity requires energy from us — but when we do something that we don’t enjoy doing or even dread, it requires even more energy from us.
On the other hand, when we engage in activities that we like, enjoy, and feel passion and purpose for, that energy that we give into those activities circles back to us — we’ll talk more about this in next week’s newsletter.
You can simply tell what you enjoy, excites you, passionate you, and fill you up simply by noticing how you feel after the activity: if you feel energetically worse, drained or depleted, that’s a sign that you should limit that thing or if possible eliminated it from your life completelly.
3. Toxic People
Another thing that drains energy from us is being around toxic people.
Some people can be quite “good” at consuming and draining our energy — author Austin Kleon in his book Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered calls these people “The Vampires”.
As described in the previous point, you can simply if someone is a “vampire” by noticing how you feel after hanging out with them.
You can also use a test called The Vampire Test, where Kleon suggests that if you hang out with someone and afterward you feel exhausted, depleted, and empty, that person is probably a vampire and you should banish him or her from your life forever.
4. Toxic Environments
Another one that can be very energy-draining is toxic environments. Being in toxic environments for an extended period of time can be quite dreadful and energy-consuming.
Artificial environments, bright blue LED lights, bad quality air, no green spaces, no chance of resting our eyes — all these things can consume a lot of our vital energy at a rapid pace.
It’s important to be mindful of these toxic environments, take breaks from them and engage in certain lifestyle practices - being in nature, mindfulness and meditation, etc - to counter their negative effects: we’ll talk more about these in next week’s newsletter.
5. Food Intolerances and Digestion
Food intolerances and digestion problems are big stressors for the body and consume a lot of energy.
The problem is that food intolerances and digestion consume our energy at an unconscious level: if we don’t pay attention to other signals and signs in the body - eg. bloating, sugar craving, brain fog, poor energy, etc - we might not realize what’s draining our energy.
Another problem is delayed symptoms. Since problems and symptoms of food intolerance and digestion problems are delayed — sometimes even up to 3 days — we are often not aware that food that we have eaten and doesn’t agree with us is now giving us problems.
So in order to maximize our energy and prevent energy drainage, we should eliminate from our diets food that doesn’t agree with us, foods that we are sensitive to and foods that give us digestive problems.
6. Burnout condition
And last but not least in the category of things that unconsciously drain us is the burnout condition.
With burnout condition, adrenal glands are weaker and they can’t produce adrenal hormones and corticosteroids as efficiently, which results in poorer energy production and stress response.
But that’s not all: amongst things that drain our energy that we might not be aware of, they are also things that speed up energy consumption and drain us even more quickly.
Things that Speed Up Energy Consumption
1. Stress and Fight of Flight Mode
As we said before, when we experience stress, our body goes into Fight or Flight Mode, which triggers the body and adrenal glands to produce a cascade of stress hormones that consumes our energy stores very rapidly.
But it’s not just that it will just consume our energy, stress will also drain that energy more rapidly because fight or flight response demands quick and fast energy to “survive” here and now.
So if we’re under a lot of stress, we will drain our energy budget more quickly.
2. Caffeine
The next one that speeds up our energy consumption is caffeine.
Caffeine activates the release of stress hormones in our body and therefore speeds up the consumption of energy. Caffeine also takes a loan out on energy from later on in the day or from the next day and creates a debt that has to be repaid.
So be mindful of caffeine: it’s okay to use it to boost your productivity and energy, in reasonable amounts, but make sure you don’t abuse it.
Why you should cut down on coffee every once in a while
3. Modern Food and Inflammation
Another thing that speeds up energy consumption is modern food and diet.
Modern foods and diets are not just ripped off nutrients, but because they are very high in vegetable oils, sugars, and highly-processed ingredients, they create inflammation in our body which is not only one of the main causes of disease and all-cause mortality, but also a huge energy consumer.
Inflammation in the body is like a fire: our body has to spend a lot of energy to put that fire out and that causes a rapid consumption of our vital energy.
The problem is not in the acute inflammation — e.g. from physical activity: such inflammation acts on our body hormetically and makes it stronger. The problems arise from chronic inflammation that is caused by chronic stress, smoking, environmental toxins, chemicals, and most commonly modern diet.
4. Lifestyle and Mindset Factors
There are also some lifestyle and mindset factors that can speed up energy consumption.
Poor sleep - both length and quality - will not only not give you energy but also cause you to drain your energy throughout the day at a much faster rate.
Excessively worrying and stressing about things, struggles, and the future will massively drain your energy.
Suffering from anxiety, depression, or trauma will also drain you of energy a lot, without you even knowing it.
So if you suffer from any of the above, it’s worth optimizing your lifestyle and adding in some mindset practices - eg. journaling, mindfulness, meditation, etc.
So one of the first steps to understanding and mastering burnout is to get to know what drains you and what causes your energy to drain faster.
Once you get aware of it, it’s time to minimize those things or eliminate them completely from your life and then add to your life and do more things that give you energy and fill you up.
More about this in next week’s newsletter, stay tuned for that!